Leopold: Redistricting should bring disparate groups together

While I regret the continued partition of Anne Arundel County into four separate congressional districts, I concur with Dan Rodricks' view that congressional redistricting across the country has helped create legislative gridlock and political segregation ("Surprising benefit of redistricting: diversity," Oct. 18).

While elected officials like Rep. Donna F. Edwards bemoan their own political fortunes, having districts with voters of differing viewpoints and ideologies offers a greater opportunity for less polarized representation interested in bipartisan compromise.

Today the Supreme Court reinforced the principle that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around, in upholding an Arizona law that puts the task of drawing congressional district boundaries in the hands of an independent commission rather than the legislature. Maryland,...

In a recent editorial you noted that Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, who lives in Prince George's County, followed the traditional formula of appealing to the Baltimore region by choosing Howard County Executive Ken Ulman as his running mate ("Twin controversies for Gansler," Oct. 14).

This Feb. 14, will mark the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the League of Women Voters, an organization that was built on the efforts to secure for women the right to vote and continues its work by providing information to all voters to ensure that the right is exercised effectively.

Like many Marylanders, I am frankly embarrassed by the strange congressional districts just approved by the electorate. I humbly suggest that future redistricting efforts attempt to make more compact districts in which the representatives can better attend to local issues.

Gerrymandering is never going to change — unless we fix this states' problems from the ground up. The recent gerrymandering of congressional districts made me come to the realization that the only way Marylanders voices will be heard is if we force our elected officials to step out of the redistricting...